As much as I use a plethora of apps on my iphone in my work – from keeping track of what I’m doing in my calendar, to checking the fall of sunlight in any given place on any given day, to checking the level of the landscape, relative heights and geopositioning. Yet I’d be totally lost without my trusty notebooks.

Yes, they’re all red. (I like red). They’re all Moleskine plain paper ones. I like the weight and feel of the books. They’re small enough to fit in a pocket so go everywhere with me, but sturdy enough to survive all weather and rough handling. Ive not had one fall apart on me yet. Well, this year they’ve not been in pockets long enough to fall apart as I’ve gotten through them at a fair pace.

As an artist, many presume they’re full of lovely sketches and doodles. That’s what artists do afterall, right?

Sadly, mine tend to be mostly full of equations:

These are calculations for the balloons in ‘level’ in Peterborough back in February. Given the size of the space and budget I needed to work out the optimum balloon / helium ratio to achieve the overall effect I was after.

And the really boring bit working out how much sand I needed to keep each one in place.

There’s lots of site plans in there too. This one is of the light fittings in a corridor in the York Nuclear Bunker:

for this:

and this is the dimensions of the central path inside the Forbidden Palace:

(not the real one. Shhh!)

I’m also a big list person. There are lots of lists. When it’s particularly busy there’s daily ‘to do’ lists:

The other nice thing about the moleskine books are the little pockets at the back. These generally fill up with receipts, but every so often little momentos make their way in, like this from my ‘One Show’ appearance..